The present invention pertains to a mounting assembly and particularly one used for attaching the end of a visor pivot rod to a roof of a vehicle.
There exists a variety of manners in which vehicle visors are attached to the roof and/or headliner of a vehicle for subsequent attachment to the roof of a vehicle. Some attachment systems have employed mounting screws which extend through a conventional visor mounting bracket, the headliner and then directly into the sheet metal roof of the vehicle. However, systems are somewhat difficult to install quickly along the vehicle assembly line since they require some skill and dexterity. Thus a snap-in type construction is preferable from an ease and cost of manufacturing standpoint.
Previous efforts have been made to incorporate visors with headliners as a subassembly which is then subsequently snapped into the vehicle roof. The advantages of such construction are well known and include the ease of assembly of the interior headliner of the vehicle with the preassembled accessories mounted thereto. One system has employed a polymeric snap-in visor fastening system in which a polymeric mounting plate having a central split post with a pair of outwardly extending flanges. This plate was positioned on the upper side of a headliner which was sandwiched between the mounting plate and a conventional visor mounting bracket secured to the polymeric plate by screws, thus mounting the visor to the snap-in fastener. The visor and headliner to which they were mounted, snapped into the vehicle using the split post and flanges for holding the assembly within an aperture formed in the vehicle roof. It was discovered that, over a period of time, polymeric fasteners when under constant stress used in such an installation tend to flow or creep which loosens the visor assembly with respect to its mounting to the sheet metal roof of the vehicle. Also during the use of the visor, during which significant forces are focused at the pivot rod mounting location, loosening of the visor occurs.
The utilization of spring steel snap-in fastening systems such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,569,552 and 4,989,911 overcomes the difficulties of polymeric-type snap-in fasteners. The fastener of the present invention also provides a spring steel snap-in fastener and one which optimizes the performance of the fastener system and accommodates for different tolerances in vehicle roof mounting locations. Further, the system of the present invention requires only a single sheet of roof material for securely attaching the headliner and visors mounted thereto to the vehicle roof.